


our little universes

by thetoneofsurprise



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, One Shot, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-19 07:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20653442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetoneofsurprise/pseuds/thetoneofsurprise
Summary: A collection of prompts/tumblr requests. Bechloe for now but may change later.





	1. I shouldn’t be in love with you.

> prompt 18. “I shouldn’t be in love with you.”

* * *

In all honesty, it was the last person Beca expected to turn up, her arrival always catching Beca off guard and tilting her center of gravity.

It had been about six months since she’d officially signed with Khaled, six months since the Bellas had split and gone their own ways and Beca had moved to Florida. But she’d still invited them all to the release party for her first album, something she’d worked tirelessly on to get it completed as soon as possible (and she already had a repertoire of songs and beats saved on her computer so there hadn’t been a great deal of work to do, just plenty of fine-tuning). 

Understandably some couldn’t make it; Jessica and Ashley were busy at a different event in California doing... something (she should really ask them what they’re doing now), Cynthia Rose was in military training and couldn’t get the leave, Lilly or Ester or whatever her name was now was off somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, Fat Amy had flown herself over since she had the money now, along with a Aubrey, Emily, Flo and Stacie (who had actually brought Bella with her and made motherhood look cool and easy at the same time). But Chloe had reluctantly declined, her studies taking up most of her time now that she was at vet school with an unavoidable exam taking place the same Friday. And she was the one Beca had been most looking forward to seeing.

It was a red carpet event so everyone was dressed particularly nicely. Beca had been assigned a blazer slash play suit piece, dark red with cut-off shorts in matching fabric and heels. Hair and make up had been done - maybe even over done for Beca’s liking - but done nonetheless. And she did look killer, she wouldn’t disagree. Beca was actually feeling good.

But even in the sea of people at the venue, alongside influencers, other artists and photographers, Beca pulling attention from all corners, her focus wasn’t with anyone else but who’d just walked in.

It was like a parting of the ocean, Beca’s direct line of sight guided by a line of emptiness with people either side and all sound plunging to mute.

A blue gilded dress with a deep neckline held the woman tight, hair braided like a halo around her head with strands falling to frame her face. And the sky. The endless gorgeous sky that Beca always saw in her eyes, even from halfway across the room it was like daylight and the height of summer and the endless possibilities that could be. Could have been.

Beca excused herself from the group she was surrounded by, one of them a journalist who was halfway done with asking Beca questions about the album and attempting to pry into her personal life. 

Chloe looked lost, eyes wandering across the vast, dark room in sight of any face she might find familiar with clutch caught in front as her body turned. Beca wove through bodies on the approach, smile growing ever so slightly larger as she neared.

And Chloe beamed, spotting the brunette head towards her and she moved forward, arms outstretched and ready to embrace her best friend.  
Laughter escaped them both when they hugged, Chloe’s warmth seeping into Beca, dissolving her stress and settling some of the underlying anxiety she’d been suffering from all day.

“I thought you couldn’t make it?” Beca asked.

“Amy flew me over from New York. You know she has her own private jet now, right?”

“I do.”

“Well, she didn’t take no for an answer, so she got her pilot to fly back and pick me up after my exam and I got ready on the plane.”

“Yeah, you look like you got ready on a plane,” Beca jested with a playful smirk.

“Please. This is Mile High Couture, thank you very much,” she said, splaying her arms out as she showed off her out and stroke a pose, “And I was going to say I look better than you but that would be an outright lie. You look... stunning, Beca, honestly.”

“This? It’s just people doing their job to make me look good. Turns out you can only do so much with an actual potato. But yours is all natural, you don’t even _need_ to try; you always look incredible.”

“You’re not a potato. But we’ll leave the ‘all natural’ comment out for discussion.”

“Dude, I’m not kidding.”

The grin on her face faltered, like a sudden thought had popped to the forefront of Chloe’s mind and escaped to her expression. She eyed someone next to them before she leaned in, pulling at Beca’s wrist and asking in a hushed voice, “Is there somewhere we can go that’s a bit more... private?”

Beca turned to who Chloe had been eyeing; a tall guy with heavy duty camera equipment that was beginning to snap pictures, flash almost blinding. A small group of people lingered behind him too, so Beca nodded in response and grasped the wrist of the hand holding her own, pulling Chloe behind her.

She knew where to go. There was a secret balcony down a corridor next to the restrooms that she had scouted earlier that day. So Beca lead them there, out into the Floridian air that was more humid than inside but fair quieter.

“Sorry about that,” Beca apologized.

Chloe shook it off, “You’re a big celebrity now. People want to know you.”

“I’m just making music, like I’ve always been doing. Just... more people are listening to it now.”

A silence fell. The thumping bass of the music inside was the only thing that could be heard but the air was still around them. They were both leaning against the edge of the balcony, solid stone wall cool on their skin.

Beca was about to speak when Chloe jumped in before her, “I listened to it. The album, I mean. As soon as you sent it over I listened to it in one sitting. I’m not going to lie to you when I tell you I cried a little bit.”

“You cry at videos of dogs.”

Chloe chuckled, “So it wasn’t necessarily a hard task, okay? But still... it really moved me, Beca.”

“Good. I’m glad you like it.”

“Especially the hidden track.”

The brunette’s posture went rigid. She doesn’t know how, but Beca had been hoping Chloe had missed it, that dumb song she’d unknowingly recorded on her down time (thanks to Theo, once again), stripped back and acoustic. “Yeah?” she asked.

“I don’t know why, but when I first heard it I was kind of... I don’t know. I had to listen to it again. But when I did, I was just... crying and I couldn’t work out why, but I felt like it was a piece of a puzzle that I didn’t even know I had that I’d been missing. And I asked Amy if she’d heard it and what she thought of it and she told me. She told me it was about us. And how you felt about me.”

“Feel,” Beca corrected, staring at the street below them.

A beat, too long too be promising, “...what?”

And it was now or never, Beca decided. Because if she owed Chloe anything, it was the truth. She didn’t have the energy to keep tip-toeing anymore. Chloe had her life sorted now so it wouldn’t make a difference, but she deserved to know, “How I feel about you. Because I love you. And I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t be in love with you because it’s not my place to be in love with you—”

“Beca...”

“The truth is, Chloe, I’ve loved you since Freshman year; starting from when you broke into my shower and invited me to audition for the Bellas. When we sang together for the first time?” Beca asked like she thought Chloe wouldn’t remember. “It just took me too long to realize, and when I did... it was too late. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was too slow and gave too little. I didn’t just break up with Jesse because of the long distance. He wanted me to move with him to LA and I said no, but as soon as you said you were going to New York the thought of not seeing you on the daily made me feel like I was going to drop off the planet. So I agreed to move with you and make it work. I knew I couldn’t ask you to be with me the same way as I was with Jesse, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because I was still saw you every day. And even on the USO tour I didn’t say anything because... because I already knew I was too late...” she looked up at Chloe with a sad, gentle smile, but blue eyes were covered by eyelids pressed shut, cheeks glistening in the dark, “and that was okay. I made my peace with that even before we moved. I just wanted you to be happy, and Chicago made you happy, so I didn’t interfere. And all the Bellas wanted me to take this opportunity so I did. And it was a perfect way to move onto the next chapter.”

“We’re not... together anymore. Chicago and I.”

It was Beca’s time to be taken aback, “What?”

“I didn’t really work out. He’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong, but he would have been working away from home a lot and I barely know him already so that’s... not what I want.”

“I’m sorry, Chloe.”

The redhead moved to Beca, clutch left behind resting on the flat of the ledge so she had two delicate hands free. And they reached for the hands across from her, pulling them closer and making Beca turn to face her, “What I’m trying to say is... that chapter? It didn’t start for me when we left Spain, but it ended on a cliffhanger when I heard your song. And I don’t know what the next one is going to be.”

And they were both so close. As close as Chloe had pulled her on hood night all those years ago, but this time Chloe’s eyes were red and puffy and there was a million things swimming within them that Beca had only dreamt about seeing half of. And just when she thought she was used to all the ways Chloe could make her feel...

Clear music erupted from the door behind them. Chloe pulled away, turning away from whoever it was that interrupted them and regaining her composure.

“Beca! We’ve been looking everywhere for you; we need you for the speech,” Theo said, his British accent grating Beca’s neck moreso than usual, “Come on, you’re already late.”

“Two seconds. Just two, I’ll be with you soon. Just... tell them I’m coming.”

“We can’t, Beca, we’re already running late,” he replied, holding the door open.

“Dude, I was having a moment!” she near yelled and she heard a chuckle from the side of her. She turned to Chloe.

“You should go. I’ll be fine. Don’t want to keep them waiting any more, Miss Hotshot Artist,” the redhead said, eyes twinkling still but the smile she offered not quite reaching them.

“I don’t care. They can wait, but you can’t. I won’t make you,” Beca whispered, even over the music, so that only they could hear. And she cupped the bottom of Chloe’s jaw, thumbs stroking damp cheeks before pulling her close and pressing lips together.

And Chloe? Chloe was everything Beca had imagined her to be. Soft, gentle, perfect. Her perfume smelled divine. She could smell the sweet scent of her hair as it danced into her senses and enveloped her completely. 

And before she knew it, Chloe’s arms were wrapped across her shoulders, the crook of her elbow pulling her body closer by the neck. They were pressed so close. So close like when they sleep but this time they were both so awake and vibrant and alive.

Chloe pulled away and Beca craved to follow but the redhead pressed delicate fingers against her lips, “You’ve done enough. I can wait ten more minutes. Go and knock ‘em dead, Becs.”

The brunette couldn’t be beaming brighter if she tried. She pressed a gentle kiss against Chloe’s fingers and pulled away, making her way to the door. She didn’t escape without a pat on the ass from the redhead, though.

And whatever the rest of this chapter had, Beca thought, it was going to even more brilliant. 


	2. are you still awake?

> "Are you still awake?"

“...are you still awake?” she asked in a whisper.

Watching small, squared shoulders rise and fall in a sigh, Chloe smiled to herself; Beca was definitely still awake. She could almost feel the air shift around them and she _knew_ Beca was rolling her eyes.

“Can I say no?” she asked to the quiet, crowded space.

“Nope.”

The brunette rolled over, their noses almost touching, and Beca readjusted her distance. Chloe could actually focus on dark eyes opposite, even despite the lack of light inside.

“What’s up?” Beca hushed back.

Chloe kind of squinted one eye and crinkled her nose and attempted to shrug her shoulders despite resting on one side, “Nothing. I just wanted to know if you were awake or not. I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Beca said. 

Chloe knew she trying to act as inconvenienced as possible. It was their game: Chloe teasing the smaller of them both and Beca always feigning annoyance like it got on her nerves, but the redhead knew better. Beca was the kind of person that would say something if she didn’t like what was happening.

“I just wanted to say—”

“So there is something.”

“Okay, yeah,” Chloe replied, mimicking how Beca rolls her eyes with a smile, “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry if, like... what I said earlier made you uncomfortable.”

Beca’s eyes looked at her directly, brows creasing lightly at the middle and Chloe could tell she had something on her mind from the way they looked vaguely distant.

“It’s cool. I kind of expect weird stuff from you now,” the brunette whispered after a silence that was so small that it might have gone unnoticed to someone else. But not to Chloe. Beca readjusted her head against the pillow and made herself comfortable, pulling her arms up until they bent at the elbow and rested between the two of them.

Their top-to-tail arrangement was their best compromise rather than being pressed together in the (already cramped) space of their tent. But it meant that when they were face-to-face they were incredibly close. And Chloe noticed it especially. 

The brunette smelt like her peppermint toothpaste (because of course Beca had forgotten her own), and that unusually sweet berry smell of shampoo that she used on dark hair. Chloe loved the smell. She loved how she always caught traces of it on the breeze when they walked together on campus, always walking purposefully close to the tiny DJ to absorb as much of her presence as she could. She just loved being around Beca. She loved being close and how Beca made her felt comfortable and like she had just discovered freedom.

“Yeah, but I’m not weird.”

“Dude, yeah you are.”

At that, Chloe jabbed Beca in the crook of her shoulder with a bony finger. It pulled a whine from Beca as attempted to bat away Chloe’s hand, and roused a few unhappy grunts from other bodies in the tent in the process. But Chloe couldn’t help but smile.

“You love it though,” she replied, voice hushed again so not to disturb anyone else.

Beca settled, pressing her eyes shut, “Just go to sleep.”

Chloe hadn’t retreated her hand, leaving it to rest a few inches shy of Beca’s slim fingers, and tempted to push her luck; tips grazing knuckles, the redhead ghosted the other girl’s hand lightly making an index finger twitch and huff of air escape Beca’s nose. But she didn’t pull away. 

Chloe looked on with bright eyes, trying to detect any sign that she’d gone too far past the brunette’s personal barrier, heart pounding but the noise not quite reaching her ears. And Beca didn’t move. Even in the darkness she detected no shift, nothing but the slow rise and fall of the girl’s ribs as her breathing settled back into a steady rhythm.

So she persisted, letting her nail glide alongside as well, moving from pale fingers down to the back of her hand. Letting sensation of the movements settle her, Chloe drifted, heaviness pressing on her eyelids.

Movements slowed further as she welcomed sleep gently, but insisted with stroking delicate skin. And she couldn’t tell if she’d already fallen into a dream, but she felt a pressure on her last digits, as if something held them so lightly that it was hard to tell if it was real or not.


End file.
